Once upon a time…

There was a beautiful queen. She had hair like gold and skin like sour cream. Unfortunately, she was about to die.

So she called her husband to her, and made him promise something. She had him promise that he’d never marry anyone unless the new queen was as beautiful as her. He agreed, and she promptly died.

Well, several years passed. The nobles all decided that there ought to be a queen. So they went to the king and asked him to get married. He explained the promise he’d made. Undaunted, the nobles went out and searched the kingdom for someone as beautiful as the old queen.

They failed.

So they searched neighboring kingdoms! And they still failed. They couldn’t find anyone with hair as gold or skin as melanin-deficient.

But the king had a daughter. She was equally as beautiful as her mother had been. The king couldn’t marry his daughter (they checked), so he decreed he’d marry her to one of the nobles.

The daughter was like “yyyyyeah, so… I’ll only marry someone if he can get me three dresses and a cloak. One dress has to be as gold as the sun, one as silver as the moon, and one has to sparkle like stars. The cloak has to be made of patches of skin from every creature in the forest.” She thought no one would be able to do this, so she wouldn’t have to marry any rich rando.

Well, the nobles were like “challenge accepted!” and got to work.

A month later, the princess was presented with fifty dresses made of gold. She picked out the dozen and a half that shone brightest, and the men who’d got them went off to find silver cloth.

A month later, she was presented with eighteen dresses as silver as the moon. She picked out the shiniest ten, and the men went off to find sparkly dresses.

A month later, she was presented with dresses covered in diamonds (sequins hadn’t been invented yet). The princess only chose one, and that man went out to figure out how to make the cloak.

It took a while, but he managed it. He had his soldiers hunt down one of each type of creature in the forest, and made leather out of their fur. Then he had the leather sewed up into a hideous cloak.

When he presented it to the princess, she had no option but to say it was perfect.

That night, she stuffed the three dresses into nut shells (magic ones, apparently). Then she pocketed three gold rings, rubbed soot on her hands and face, put on the cloak, and snuck out of the castle.

She walked and walked, until she passed out of her father’s kingdom. Then she walked some more.

Finally at dusk she was too tired to walk any more, so she curled up between the roots of a tree and fell asleep.

Well, that day, the king of the land happened to be out hunting. He spotted the amalgamation of furs, and had his men go poke it with a stick.

The princess woke up, made sure her hair was covered with the cloak’s hood, and got to her feet.

“What are you?” the king asked.

“I am a poor creature with no mother and no father,” she answered. “I’m lost, with no place to call home.”

The king was like “well, if you want a home, you can come work in my kitchen. But I will show your oddness off to visitors on occasion.”

She agreed to this, and they took her to his castle. The king asked if she could take off the cloak, and she said it was a part of her. If she took it off, she’d die.

He asked her name, and she said she didn’t have one. So when they got to the castle, she was introduced to the cook as the Many-Furred Creature. Which suited her just fine.

Well, it wasn’t the life of a princess, but life as a cook’s assistant was fine. She got her own room with her own fireplace (where she hid her nuts and rings), and had all the food she could cook herself. The cook was a good guy, who treated her well. And it turns out she was a pretty good cook.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

One day, after a month of living there, the king threw a ball. The Many-Furred Creature asked if she could go watch the party, and the cook told her she could take an hour break from work.

So she ran to her room, washed up, and took the gold dress out of its nut. She slipped it on, and ran upstairs.

When she got to the party, everyone stared. No one knew who she was, only that she had to be the daughter of a king.

The king, instantly falling in love with her, asked her to dance. She agreed, and they danced for half an hour, talking the whole time. When the last song ended, she ran out of the room so fast it might as well have been teleportation.

She ran back to her room, took the dress off, put the cloak back on, and rubbed soot on her hands and face. She was back in the kitchen as the Many-Furred Creature before the hour was up.

The next day, the only thing anyone could talk about was the mysterious princess who had stolen the king’s heart.

Except the cook, who had to run a few errands, and asked the Many-Furred Creature to make the king’s lunch by herself. He told her which soup to make, and warned her to be careful about not getting any fur in the soup. And then he left.

She made the soup as instructed, but she put one of her golden rings in the bottom of the king’s bowl.

When lunch was served, the king thought the soup tasted better than it usually did. He wasn’t going to mention it, but then he got to the bottom of the bowl and found a gold ring. Very curious, he asked one of his guards to bring the cook to him.

The cook, who had just gotten back, freaked out. He told the Many-Furred Creature “I swear, if you got a hair in the king’s soup, and I get in trouble for it, your quality of life here is gonna DROP.”

When he got upstairs, the king asked “did you make the soup today?”

The cook stood tall and nodded.

“Really?” the king asked. “It tasted different than it usually does.”

“Welllll, I personally didn’t make the soup,” the cook said. “The Many-Furred Creature made the soup, under my direction.”

The king held up the gold ring. “How did this get in there?”

The cook squinted at it. “Iiiiiii… have no clue.”

The king decided it was an unsolvable mystery, and everyone got on with their lives.

A few weeks later, the king held another ball. The Many-Furred Creature again asked for an hour off work to watch the dancing. The cook agreed, since she’d been doing a good job lately, and off she went to clean up. This time she put on her silver dress, the one that shone like the moon.

When she walked into the room, all eyes were instantly on her. The king ran up and asked her to dance. She graciously accepted, and they spent a joyous half-hour spinning around the dance floor. When the half-hour was done, she vanished out of the room.

Ten minutes later, she was back in her cloak, with face and hands covered in soot. She went to the kitchen and helped the cook arrange strawberries on a cake.

The next day, the cook had to run out to get something, and left the Many-Furred Creature in charge of lunch again. When she ladled soup into bowls, she hid one of her gold rings in the bottom of the king’s bowl again.

The king found the ring while he was eating, and called the cook to him. He asked who had made the soup, and the cook answered that the Many-Furred Creature had.

This time, the king called the Many-Furred Creature to him. He asked her where the ring had come from.

“I don’t know,” she answered.

“Did you put the ring in the soup?” the king asked.

“Nope,” she answered.

“Was there anyone else in the kitchen?” he asked.

“Only me,” she said.

Deciding it was an unsolvable mystery, the king let the cook and Many-Furred Creature go.

This time, the Many-Furred Creature didn’t wait until the next party to put her third ring in the soup. She waited three or four days, and then put it in.

The king found the ring, but this time decided to not call anyone up. He suspected he knew who the owner of the rings was.

A week later, the king held a third ball. The Many-Furred Creature asked permission to watch, and was given an hour to do so.

So she ran to her room, cleaned up, and put on her diamond-covered dress. When she went to the ballroom, the king once again asked her to dance.

They spent a wonderful half-hour dancing. But the king didn’t let her go after that. She tried to get away, but he insisted they dance one more dance.

That dance lasted twenty minutes.

She finally got away, but didn’t have time to change out of her dress or put soot on her hands and face. Thankfully the cloak covered most of the dress, and the cook was too busy to notice her face was clean.

They’d just finished taking a turkey out of the oven when the king called them both up to the ball. They didn’t want to, as they were very busy, but the king insisted.

When they got up there, the king pulled out the three rings he’d found in his soup. He ordered the Many-Furred Creature to hold out her hand, which she did. The king took her dainty white fingers, and slipped the rings on. They all fit perfectly. Then he pulled her arm further out of her cloak, and found a diamond-covered sleeve.

With a flourish, he pulled off the cloak. Everyone was amazed to find the princess he’d danced with standing there, in all her sparkly, gold-haired glory.

The king asked her to marry him, and she accepted. They were married then and there, and lived happily ever after.

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Moral: Even princesses need to learn how to cook good food.